Splatoon 2 But It's More Like A Story
by Danneh Boi
Summary: Dane and Hana decide to move to Inkopolis Square from Inkopolis Plaza. They will make new and reunite with old friends, encounter dangerous foes, and save the rest of Inkopolis from dangers it doesn't even know exist. Rated T for possibly some swears and maybe a fight scene or two.
1. Leaving For The Square

This is quite literally my first time writing a serious fanfiction, so please judge me as harshly as possible. Criticize my every minute flaw or error! Flood my comment sections with angsty rage so hot it could burn a hole through my computer screen! Do this so I can learn and provide you all with the best work I can put forward.

Also, I have no plans for a consistent update schedule, but it will get done sometime. I can do the most work on fridays and weekends. It should go without saying that there are some spoilers for Splatoon 2 and maybe also the first one. Enjoy!

* * *

 _Beep! Beep! Beep!_ blared the alarm on Dane's phone, pulling him roughly out of the recesses of his sleep. He slowly opened his cyan eyes and reached to his right to shut his alarm off. Unplugging the charger from his phone, he glanced at the time. _7:00 A.M._ it read. Too early in Dane's opinion, but he needed to be up so soon if he wanted to be on time for the train to the square.

"Nnn..." he groaned tiredly as he forced himself out of bed. Dane trudged to the hotel room bathroom (he sold his apartment a few days before), washed his face quickly, brushed his teeth, and tied up his two larger tentacles, which were green from his last battle, on top of his head. Glancing at the mirror and deeming himself ready for the day, he walked back over to his bed where his suitcase was, deciding on his Zink Layered LS shirt and his Pilot Goggles that everyone thought looked stupid, but he still wore them anyway. He slid his Purple Hi-Horses onto his feet, gathered anything he had left, and walked out to go get breakfast.

Dane turned right and carried his suitcase down two flights of blue-carpeted stairs to the lobby. He nodded kind of smugly at the other patrons as if to say _Hah, I'm finally getting outta this dead-end town, but you're still stuck here!_ He walked over to the receptionist to turn his room key in and pay for his last day there. The receptionist was an older squid with dark magenta hair and worn out grey eyes that looked like they had seen off many kids just the same as Dane in the past. Her name tag read "Jane K." and was very faded, suggesting she had been here for a very long time

"Finally gettin' out of here, huh, kid?" She asked him. "Good for you. This town isn't so happening like it used to be anymore."

That was certainly true. Inkopolis felt much more deserted now than it did two years ago. Annie had closed down Cooler Heads, Crusty Sean went to start his own business like he had always talked about. Even Sheldon moved Ammo Knights over to Inkopolis Square - "Better for business," he had claimed. Spyke wasn't in his usual shady alleyway, Judd had left his pedestal (probably somewhere in the Square), and even the strange old squid who used to pop out of his sewer grate didn't appear anymore. Dane was also pretty sure the Squid Sisters hadn't recorded any original news segments for the daily news broadcasts in weeks, if not months.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, it's good to finally get out of here," Dane replied. "I'm going with my friend Hana and we're going to see if we can each start new lives there."

"I see! Well, good luck to both of you," the receptionist replied with a semi-genuine smile.

"Thanks!" Dane waved as he walked out toward the train station.

Outside the hotel there was a small cafe from which Dane ordered a breakfast sandwich and sat outside at one of those patterned black metal tables that cafes usually had. Just as he was about to take a bite, he felt his phone buzz once in his pocket. He pulled it out and squinted at the screen, which showed he had recieved a text from Hana. He opened his Messages app and clicked on her name.

" _hey r u ready yet"_ the text read. Dane sighed at the way it was written. He had tried in the past to convince her to use correct grammar when texting or writing, but she still preferred her way. "Life's too short to be worrying about perfect grammar all the time," she had said.

" _Almost, I'm eating breakfast now. I should be there in maybe, like, 5-10 minutes?"_ Dane replied. He set his phone down to eat some of his sandwich and after a few seconds it buzzed again.

 _"k see you there!"_ the text read. Dane smiled and put his phone back in his shorts pocket. He finished the rest of his sandwich and set off toward the train station. As he promised, it took him about eight minutes in total to get there and under one of the covered benches he saw Hana sitting next to some squids he didn't know and apparently she didn't know either. She was wearing a basic white shirt and listening to music with her Studio Headphones. Her long tentacles were magenta at the moment. She glanced up and her expression brighted when she saw him.

"Well, well, well! If it isn't Mr. Late Squid," Hana teased in greeting. "I almost thought you weren't going to show up!"

"Aw, you know I wouldn't skip out on something like this!" Dane replied, raising his arms up to demonstrate the scale of what they were doing. "Besides, I already sold my apartment, bought another one, and I only have $5,000 cash at all, so I really can't go anywhere else." They both laughed. Hana reached into her shorts pocket and pulled out her phone to check the time. It said _7:43 A.M._ and there was an attached reminder she had recorded earlier which said," _If you aren't on the train already then y'all need to hurry your squid asses up and get on!"_

"Oh no, Dane!" Hana exclaimed jokingly. "We need to hurry our squid asses onto that train!"

"Let's go then!" Dane replied, unable to keep the excitement off of his face. He and Hana each grabbed their suitcases and stepped onto the open doors of their train, which had arrived a few minutes ago so it seemed. They found a cabin with rows of purple seats and sat on the end closer to the door across from each other. The ride there was only going to be 20 minutes, but Dane figured he would listen to some music on the way there. He fished out his white earbuds and plugged them into his phone. He then opened up the SquidTube app because why pay for the music you listen to when you could just wait for someone else to illegally put it online? He quickly searched for an extended version of the song "Splattack!" by Squid Squad and set it on.

"All aboard train route 256 from Inkopolis Plaza to Inkopolis Square," a male squid's voice came in over the intercom in the cabin. The doors closed and there was a hiss as the cabin was pressurized. _This is it,_ Dane thought to himself, and he was sure Hana was thinking something similar, even though her attention was directed at her phone. He felt the train start moving slowly at first until it pulled away from the station, but then got increasingly faster settling on a speed where plants along the ground blurred together slightly if he looked straight at them. The two squid-kids sat in silence across from the each other, listening to their music and wondering about what kind of adventure their new life would hold for them.


	2. The Boring Tutorial

Thanks for the reviews! Sorry about the formatting issues I had with the first chapter, I'm still learning how this site works. I think I have enough of it figured out that it shouldn't happen again, but sorry if it does in the future. Anyway, here's the next chapter! This one's my take on how the character creation would work if Splatoon 2 were not a video game.

* * *

"Hey, Dane, we're here!" Hana shook him out of his slight daze.

"Huh, what? Oh, sorry, I guess I must've fallen asleep a little," Dane replied. The train had started to slow and eventually came to a stop in front of a small grey building which had a big neon-lit orange sign above it that read "The Road to Inkopolis Square.

"Here, come on," Hana led him out the train doors, which had opened a few moments earlier. They stepped onto a light grey cement landing that left a few meters before the building. Upon their further inspection of the building, it had two doorways separated by a thin wall that didn't seem like it was made out of the same material as the other walls of it, more of a curtain it seemed. Above the section on the right, there was a blue neon sign that said "Male"and above the door on the left was a pink neon sign which said " _female_ ".

"I guess we go into our own doorways?" Dane suggested to Hana.

"Seems like it," Hana agreed and walked over to the left. Dane followed suit and walked to the right. When he stepped inside he found a terminal that said " _Pick a skin tone,_ " and on it's screen it showed seven different possible skin tones in a darkening gradient going from left to right. He noticed a mat in front of it that had two footprints - directing him to stand there, he assumed. He decided that he was going to try a more pale skin tone and selected the one on the far left. The screen directed him to stand on the mat, which he did, and a small device on top of the screen scanned him with a matrix of green lasers. After a few moments, he noticed his skin had shifted to the lighter color. He glanced over his hands and arms. _Not bad,_ he deemed, and a metal door opened next t the terminal.

He stepped through to find a similar terminal that asked him to pick an eye color. Similar to the skin tone screen, there were some swatches representing his choices, 12 he counted. _12? That's a lot more than in the Plaza,_ he noted. He was fine with his current cyan color, so he selected it again. Another small matrix scanner beamed across his eyes, but nothing happened and another door opened. The new room was a bit larger than the other ones he had been passed and had a chair with a robotic apparatus on the ceiling above it. The chair had a mirror and the selection screen in front of it on the wall. " _How do you like your hair?_ " words on the screen asked him and showed four different blank squid heads, each filled in on top with different green hairstyles. _I didn't know they allowed that here..._ Dane mused to himself with eyes a little wider than usual in surprise. Everyone had to have either the tied up tentacles or the two long ones on either side in Inkopolis Plaza.

He mulled over his options a few times each, but his eyes always stuck to the second one, which had two rows of three equal length tentacles each. He sat in the chair and tapped the 2nd squid - a few times he had to because the screen had been worn down in that spot. _Must be a popular style,_ he guessed. The robotic apparatus on the ceiling procured six small arms which reached down, gently grabbed each of the tentacles on his head and lifted them up so they were even in length. A seventh arm appeared from the device, which was carrying scissors, promptly cut short all of his held-up tentacles and began to arrange them like in the pattern he selected. After a few moments, the arms released him and retracted into the ceiling. He glanced at himself in the mirror, smiled, and said out loud, "Damn, I look good." An additional door appeared, which he went through routinely.

Through the door was _another_ room, which Dane thought was getting old at this point, but he continued walking anyways. This one quite simply had four bins, three with what looked like shorts or other such leg-wear, and one that was filled half with Splattershot Juniors and half with Ink Tanks. He looked at the three bins first, each of which was labeled with an image of their contents. The first bin seemed to just be regular shorts, not unlike his current ones. The second bin had the same shorts as before, but now there were tights underneath them. The third container had pants that seemed to go down to the wearer's knee and were tied off at that point. He decided to grab a pair of the shorts and tights and changed into them quickly. _Closest thing to pants they'll probably ever give me,_ he thought.

That left one more bin. Stepping over, Dane picked up a Splattershot Junior and Ink Tank, hooked them up to each other, and pulled his arms through the straps. Looking at himself in the floor length mirror on the wall, he was struck by a sudden feeling of nostalgia. Only a little more than two years ago, he had been in this exact same situation - he really was starting all over again. On the far wall he saw a red button which was labeled " ** _TO TUTORIAL AREA_.**" Naturally, the first thing he did, as should be done with all red buttons, was press it without even reading the other notes around it or considering possible consequences.

Fortunately, all it did was open a door to outside the building. Dane stepped out and squinted for a moment because of the bright sunlight. He considered just running ahead through what would be the tutorial section, but he decided it would be better to wait for Hana; she had done the same for him, after all. He scanned around his surroundings and deduced he was in some kind of wide alleyway that extended into a... construction site? He couldn't see much farther from his current vantage point.

After waiting for a full _minute and a half,_ Hana's door finally opened and she walked out, just as he did.

"Who's the late squid now?" he teased. She had changed her appearance kind of drastically compared to when she came in. Her tentacles only reached her shoulders now and her skin was one or two shades darker. She had also opted to wear a kind of short maroon-colored skirt over her shorts.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she said with some exasperation. "I was trying to decide what eye color I wanted. So many choices..."

"Aren't your eyes the same color as before?" Dane noticed.

"Um... Uh..." Hana fumbled for what to say because she knew he was right. "Hey! Let's go over there!" She pointed to the downward sloping path ahead of them and ran ahead. Dane sighed and followed her. As they reached a small landing, a corny voice that sounded very prerecorded came on over a set of overhead loudspeakers.

" _Think you're too cool for school? Well it's time to prove it in battle!_ " the voice greeted them. " _You're looking a little green though. Let's start with the basics!_ " Two green balloons appeared in front of them. Dane and Hana were both confused at first.

"They... they know we've done this before right?" Dane asked her, almost a little offended that they would think he needed a tutorial.

"Must be for kids just starting out, I guess," she replied. "Hey, why do you look so bummed out? It's just a tutorial."

"I know, I know, but I've really just been wanting to get to the Square already," he explained. "All this waiting and planning and we're sitting here getting taunted with freaking balloons!" He pointed at them with his Splattershot for emphasis.

"Hmm... well how about this? Let's just skip it!" Hana suggested and Dane stood up straighter in attention. "We already know how this works and it's just slowing us down. Whaddaya say?" Dane's eyes had lit up at this point and he was smiling like he was getting away with murder.

"I thought you'd never ask," he said decidedly and flipped the safety lock to 'off' and started inking himself a path forward. Hana followed suit.

And so, they skipped the tutorial, ignoring every one of the corny voice's messages unless they were directly related to getting to the top. They mostly used a repetitive pattern of shooting and then swimming through what they shot as squids. Only when the messages said," _Climb on up - you're almost to Inkopolis Square!_ " did they pause their motions. They had come to an overlook with a small circular puddle of green ink that was rippling. Beyond it they saw a city skyline and some more construction work.

" _Alright-that's enough warming up. Turn into a squid to Super Jump!_ " The voice told them again.

"Normally, I'd offer ladies first, but-" he said with a mischievous grin on his face. "-There's no way I'm letting you get there first."

"Fine by me, I just hope it's everything we've made it out to be," Hana stepped aside so he could launch.

"It will be, I'm sure of it!" Dane assured her proudly.

"Alright, see you there!" she smiled as he turned into a squid over the launchpad and pushed off against it with all of his tentacles. It gave way slightly and snapped back into place launching him out and to the left slightly, straight towards the skyline and away from the past into a new future that would be everything they had both been dreaming of.


	3. Live From Inkopolis Square

Hello, school-induced hiatus? School-induced hiatus machine [B]roke. Understandable, have a great chapter.

* * *

Dane was overwhelmed as he landed in Inkopolis Square.

He had been dropped in a relatively open space that seemed to be rectangular by looking at the buildings that lined the central area. In front of him there was a large radio tower with a giant screen on it, similar to the one in the Plaza. The rest of the tower was covered in billboards and another giant screen that was shaped like a phone advertising gear from brands he had never seen before. He was told that the Great Zapfish had also moved over there, but he couldn't see it on the tower.

Before he could marvel at all the new surroundings more, Hana landed next to him.

"Whoa..." she said after landing. "So this is Inkopolis Square, huh? It's... kinda small."

"Look at all this new shit!" Dane said to her, barely even noticing what she said.. "Look, there's new shops-" he pointed at the row of buildings he assumed to be shops. "There's a new Tower-" Dane pointed at the tower, which he didn't know the name of. "There's even a new shady alleyway, two of them this time!" He made her look to the left of the tower, which had a cement ramp leading up to a building with a big neon orange sign. The walkway there was blocked by a large metal gate. Hana was turned to the right and saw a much smaller alley that didn't look quite as shady.

"And look at all the people!" He did a sweeping motion with his arm to show her. There were inklings just about everywhere, talking to each other, eating, shopping."There's so many of them compared to the old place, they've all got new gear, I probably look like an idiot just standing here and pointing around, but that's th-" he stopped as the center screen on the tower played a jingle reminiscent of the Inopolis Plaza news theme. As it did, most of the inklings stopped what they were doing and walked closer to the center of the square to watch.

The screen cut to a news studio that had an inkling and an octoling sitting and standing respectively at either side of the studio. The inkling had a white vest with a large gold zipper, as well as pink leggings, white boots, and a crown that looked similar to her tentacles, which were short and white with pink ends. The inkling seemed to be relatively short, which Dane inferred from the fact that her feet didn't touch the ground even from her chair. On screen, she was captioned as Pearl.

The octoling on the left seemed to be the polar opposite of Pearl. She was wearing a black crop-top with no sleeves, the silver zipper on which was mostly undone. She had four large dark brown tentacles on her head, which faded to a light teal color and had the suckers on the outside, as was the norm for octolings. She also was wearing some studio headphones and was standing at a turntable set. The octoling was captioned as Marina.

"Y'all know what time it is!" Pearl announced.

"It's Off the Hook, coming at you LIVE from Inkopolis Square!" Marina followed. The screen wiped itself with grey bars for a moment, then returned to the studio. Behind the reporters was a large rectangular window in which they could see some inklings taking pictures and video of the broadcast.

"Check it!" Pearl said. "Here are the current Regular Battle stages!" Following this, Marina spun one of the records on her turntable which displayed snapshots of two stages on the modern-looking white Tv in the center of the camera's view, one after the other, called "Inkblot Art Academy" and "The Reef." Inkblot Art Academy seemed to be staged on an open part of an art school campus. The Reef looked like it was a relatively open large courtyard surrounded by a shopping mall setup.

"Just rush down the middle and smash 'em. Piece of crab cake!" Pearl announced.

"Nah, it's all about the side routes if you ask me," Marina countered. The whole time the conversation was happening, Dane was still internally (and a little bit externally) flipping his shit and Hana had become quiet in concentration at the broadcast. The screen reset again the same as before.

"And these are the current Ranked Battle stages!" Pearl continued. Marina revealed them as "Starfish Mainstage," which appeared to be just a stage where a band might play that was open on the front and back, and "Musselforge Fitness," a large excercise facility. "A membership to this place costs an arm and a leg," Pearl said dejectedly.

"Yeah, but at least the arm and the leg will be jacked," Marina joked. The duo seemed to be capable of the same kind of off-the-cuff snide and snappy remarks at each others' own expense, like the Squid Sisters. _Hmm,_ Hana thought to herself. _I wonder why the Squid Sisters Broadcast isn't on here. Maybe something happened to them? No, there's probably a better explanation..._ The screen reset again.

"Here are the League Battle stages!" The inkling newscaster said, but neither Dane nor Hana really paid attention. Whatever League Battles were, they had never heard of them and certainly wouldn't be ready to do them for a while. Another reset of the screen, which cut to Pearl glancing backwards nervously.

"Uh... why is our producer freaking out? Read the teleprompter, Marina!" Pearl urged.

"Huh? Let's see here..." Said octoling read nervously and spun her turntables. The Tv displayed a picture with the headline 'GREAT ZAPFISH MISSING' and the top of the tower with a striking lack of giant electric eel atop it.

"THIS JUST IN! The Great Zapfish has... disappeared?!" Marina gasped, which set off a bunch of anxious conversations in the crowd, which, up until then had been relatively quiet. Dane and Hana looked at the top of the Tower and sure enough, the giant black fish was nowhere to be seen.

"Wait, like, for reals?! I feel like I've heard this story somewhere before..." Pearl said with notes of suspicion in her voice. Marina continued reading her script and turned to the next news slide. It was a black-and-white headshot of Callie from the Squid Sisters smiling titled 'POP STAR CALLIE ALSO MISSING.'

"There's more!" Marina continued. "Pop superstar Callie of the Squid Sisters has gone missing!"

"NOOOO! NOT CALLIE! This is terrible! Do something, Marina!" Pearl demanded. Dane and Hana looked at each other for a second, worry evident in their eyes, and turned back to keep watching.

"Uh..." Marina fumbled for what to say. "Okay, I'll put together a search part-"

"Whatever. I'm sure they'll turn up at some point," Pearl interrupted. "In other news..."

"But, shouldn't we form a search party or someth-" Marina began again, but she was cut off by a transition wipe, to which some of the audience laughed.

"And that's all the time we've got!" Pearl finished. "Until next time..." she hopped out of her plush chair and Marina pushed her turntables aside.

"Don't get cooked... Stay Off the Hook!" they said in unison and waved the tops of their hands at the audience, similar to how the Squid Sisters used to. After a moment, the screen on the tower went back to advertisments and the crowds in the center went back to what they were doing. Hana looked at Dane, unsure of what to say.

"Well, that was certainly something," she decided.

"You said it. That Marina girl, though... she, uh-" he cleared his throat. "She really - really catches your eye, if you know what I'm saying."

"Yeah, you were staring at her the whole time!" Hana teased.

"I was not!" He shot back, making a mock angry face and they both laughed for a moment. When they stopped, Hana sighed anxiously.

"I hope Callie and the Great Zapfish are alright," she said and Dane nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, I hope so too. I'm not worried, though," he said confidently. "The Zapfish disappeared before and it came back soon enough; I know it can come back a second time." Hana smiled at his confidence and felt a little more reassured herself.

"Anyways, I should probably go find my apartment now, put my suitcase away, y'know," Dane said.

"Me too, I'll come with you. My apartment isn't too far from yours," she lifted the extendable handle on her suitcase and said,"After you," and pointed them to the train. Dane grabbed his suitcase and strode back towards the train station, with Hana following right after.

"We're finally here, my dude," he told her just outside the covered area. "We really get to start again."


End file.
